Was O this terrible at roster management at Ole Piss?

It was very similar.

Had a big handful of impact players that were uber talented and succeeded in college and the NFL despite his lack of development.

Then a shite ton of transfers, poorly evaluated kids, and "projects" that were wasted without development.

Nutt came in and plug a bunch of holes with average recruits quickly and used those handful of top talent guys to win a couple of cotton bowls.

After O finished his Ole Miss stint at 10-25 (3-21 ) in 2007, Nutt went 9-4 and 9 Ole Miss players were drafted in the NFL after 2008.

It helped Nutt to have Snead while he had to sit when O had him, but it looked like O simply sucked with a decent roster.

it's hard to blame it on roster management when there's what, 18 notable players out? I'm not an O apologist, and he should 100% be fired, but you can't look at this list of players and say "man he did a terrible job managing the roster." He got guys here, the injuries the last two years have just been too much to overcome the subpar coaching. There have however been several misses on the O-line.

Brennan
Emory
Goodwin
Boutte
Smith
Hilton
Storz
Rosenthal
Wire
Evans
Gaye
Anthony
Logan - most of the season, back now
White
Ryan - most of the season, back now
Burns
Stingley
Ricks
Todd

Next year you return
Brennan
Emory
Goodwin
Boutte
Smith
Hilton
Wire
Gaye - maybe
White
Ryan
Burns
Ricks
Todd

from the injured/suspended group.

Worst coach in ole miss history for a reason.

Slightly different environment back then when players were less likely to transfer b/c they would have to sit a year and the original school could often limit what school the player could go to. Players these days have a lot more agency. That along with early signing period means that we'll probably lose a fair number of players and recruits.
But the flip side of that is that we should be able to replace them with transfers.

Another big problem that I see with our 2021 team is that we're just soft on the football field. Weak blocking, weak tackling. Injury prone. Very simple scheme on defense. I can see where the next coach comes in and has to do a bit of a culture reset. That might sacrifice the 2022 season to wash out the bad habits and supplement depth before we're able to really compete for SEC championship in 2023.

quote:

---

Next year you return
Brennan
Emory
Goodwin
Boutte

---

assuming a lot re: Brennan. Also suspect Boutte is done or is done at the first sign of not being able to compete for a title.

If he tore his Achilles, then he could actually be done for a while and may never come all the way back to peak performance. My wife is a podiatrist and she did not like the look of how he was injured.

quote:

---

Then a shite ton of transfers, poorly evaluated kids, and "projects" that were wasted without development. Nutt came in and plug a bunch of holes with average recruits quickly and used those handful of top talent guys to win a couple of cotton bowls.

---

This. O was all about making a big splash on signing day, that didn’t always translate into putting a good team on the field. A bunch of his highly-rated signees had problems qualifying academically. See Jerrell Powe.

O was a terrible talent evaluator. I personally witnessed an argument he had with Frank Wilson about a recruit Wilson was very high on. O didn’t want to offer him because he didn’t have enough “stars” from the recruiting services, but he finally acquiesced to Wilson. The recruit was future pro-bowler Mike Wallace.

O was an even worse head coach. He squandered the good talent he had recruited. He personally wrecked special teams. I once saw him chew out a place kicker on the sideline for missing a field goal, which doesn’t exactly build confidence.

Nutt came in and did a better job coaching O’s recruits, coasting to a couple of good seasons. But Nutt was lazy and after a couple of years it showed. Getting Freeze (an O disciple) was a great relief. But we know how that worked out.

Brent Shaeffer was his QB transfer first. Then I think he got Snead. He doesn’t know how to run a program or manage the talent. He is a motivator and an energy guy. He has no clue how to look at talent other than DL and figure out whether they can fit into your program. He star chased recruiting rankings over trusting his own evaluations. The 2018 class basically amounted to a recruiting class you would sign under full sanctions given the amount of players that quit or left.

Nutt was getting fired before that knee. Ole Miss people said Nutt was barely even holding practices at that point.